British figure skating duo set for Milan hoping to prove there is more to pairs

Independent

08-07-2025

Think of Olympic figure skating and the mind invariably turns towards Torvill and Dean, whose string of perfect sixes in Sarajevo in 1984 remains the unattainable peak to which subsequent British ice dancers have aspired.
John and Sinead Kerr, and Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland, have scraped top 10 finishes at the Games, while current number ones Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson last year became the first domestic duo to claim a world medal in the discipline since their illustrious predecessors over 40 years earlier.
While ice dance has become as quintessentially British as four minute miles or old soldiers hurling themselves head-first down the Cresta Run, its more classic companion, pairs, has slid by comparatively unnoticed.
But having landed a quota place for next year's Winter Olympics in Milan by virtue of an unexpected 12th place finish at last year's World Championships, British team Anastasia Vaipan-Law and Luke Digby are on a mission to prove there is more to their sport than step sequences and Bolero's.
'UK figure skating has always been about Torvill and Dean, so people see us together and assume we're just the same,' said Vaipan-Law, who grew up as a singles skater in Dundee before switching to link up with the Sheffield-based Digby in 2019.
'I'm never offended, because Torvill and Dean were absolutely incredible. But we're actually completely different.'
Pairs fundamentally differs in its requirement for acrobatic lifts and throws, as opposed to ice dance, which emphasises interpretation and connection. Whereas pairs has been contested at every Winter Olympics and even some summer Games prior to that, ice dance only made its debut at the Games in 1976.
The dramatic nature of pairs has earned the respect of Britain's number one ice dancers, Gibson and Fear, who will go to Milan as arguably Britain's best figure skating medal hopes since Torvill and Dean, having won a bronze medal at last year's World Championships.
'Our lifts are scary and he's holding on to me, so the fact of being thrown across the ice and landing, that takes a lot of courage,' said Fear. 'I always watch pairs in awe.'
Although ice dancing appears a more natural path, Digby said it was never a question of following the crowd when he came to terms with the fact that his prospective career as a singles skater was over.
'It was always going to be pairs,' he added. 'We both came from being quite good solo skaters and had already individually done the jumps that were required. The two disciplines might seem similar, but the elements and routines we're doing actually make it completely different.'